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Brazil’s Ministry of Finance has proposed that licensed betting operators in the country should all use a dot.bet domain, presumably to keep legal betting easily identifiable.
Brazilian paper of record Folha de S.Paulo reported on Tuesday (April 2) that dot.bet will come before dot.br in web addresses. There is also reportedly potential for “apostas” — the Portuguese word for bets — to be used instead.
The ministry has already informed the Internet Steering Committee in Brazil, which controls domain creation and management.
While these small details are parsed out, the Bets and Prizes Secretariat remains without an appointee to run it.
Despite delays caused by a lack of leadership in key positions, operators continue to strike lucrative sports sponsorship deals to cement their status ahead of licensing.
This week, Brazil’s famed football club Fluminense put pen to paper on a new master sponsorship deal with Superbet, which will replace online bookmaker Betano on its famous tricolour shirt.
The deal is worth R$52m ($10.3m) per year for a three-year contract, making it less than half the value of Corinthians record busting deal earlier this year with VaideBet for R$370m (US$75.8m) for three years.
In February, Brazilian sports-betting lawyer Udo Seckelmann told Vixio Gambling Compliance that the dizzying deal would not be topped: “I think we’ve reached the maximum in terms of market value for sponsorship agreements, and everything that's related to betting in Brazil before the regulation, because I heard some of the operations — their gross gambling revenue — are dropping a bit,” he said. “So the fever is stable now.”
The agreement is the third most lucrative in Brazilian sporting history, coming in after Corinthians, Flamengo and Pixbet, Palmeiras and Crefisa, and tying with São Paulo and Superbet.
According to reports, Betano tried to hold on to its sponsorship but could or would not match Superbet’s offer.
Superbet will debut as master sponsor on April 9 when the team faces off against Chile’s Colo-Colo, which is sponsored by Coolbet.
Chile’s Ministry of Justice issued an order to the National Association of Professional Football (ANFP) to end all commercial relationships with online betting operators in 30 days in September of last year, which Colo-Colo and several others did not heed.
